Lyons: Florida alimony bill brings horror stories

Monday

Some topics are best avoided. The bill aimed at making changes in Florida's alimony system might be one, for me.

By writing about it at all, I am sure to hear from lots more people who are angry and bitter about their divorce and how the courts dealt with it and how the ex-spouse has been a jerk, and so on.

It is grim and depressing stuff. And those who talk to me must often hate my response, which, tactfully as I can say it, almost always comes to this: I'm sorry for all your grief, and you could be right that what happened is unfair, but I'm not doing a column about your terrible divorce, your terrible ex, your terrible lawyer or your terrible judge.

Sometimes I also tell the caller — after he or she adamantly lambastes a judge for being an idiot for not seeing right away that the ex-spouse is a lying, irresponsible creep — that the judge wasn't really the most gullible person in the courtroom. What about the person who once married that irresponsible, lying creep? And how could any judge settle things fairly and lawfully and make both sides agree it was all fair and square?

When I started hearing last year from activists promoting alimony reform, I saw they had some good points. Their horror stories included cases of ex-spouses — often but not always women — getting free paychecks forever. Though young enough to start a career, these spouses had no motivation to even train for one as long as a reasonably prosperous ex-husband kept the court-ordered alimony payments coming.

That seemed like a holdover from ancient times, when courts often assumed a wife to be dependent and lost without a man to pay the bills. Lots of women have valid gripes about men who owe child support and aren't paying, but some of these stories did not involve children. They were usually about men still making large alimony payments decades after the children, if any, were grown.

The checks also continued long after the ex was shacked up with a new partner. They never stopped.

But I still stayed out of it, guessing that sort of thing was rare and figuring reforms would get nowhere. Angry men would vent and talk to lawmakers, but nothing would happen, I assumed.

Maybe I forget that prosperous males dominate the Legislature. Maybe many have no problem imagining a fed-up wife hitting the road and seeking lifetime alimony.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the alimony reform bill seemed to fly right though the Legislature. And now it is on the governor's desk, ready to sign.

Art Ginsburg, a Sarasota lawyer, was a little late when he started sending warnings that this alleged reform would be terrible.

"The bill is caustic to women and families," he wrote. Under it, alimony "can only be ordered for half the length of the marriage. A woman married for 20 years, who has been a stay at home Mom with three children and married to a multi-millionaire can only receive 10 years of alimony." If the alimony stops at age 60, he said, getting a job then with no professional experience "is nearly impossible."

Well, a leisurely life living forever on alimony would be nice, no doubt. But hold on. That ex also generally gets half the marital assets, including half the man's retirement package, and will be entitled to Social Security from his pay-in. So, is it really cruel to expect that, during a decade getting alimony, she spend at least some time preparing to get a job?

Not many people are entitled by law to be supported in style for life, and not many should be. And there are women who will testify that permanent alimony harms them, too. And not just the few paying alimony. Talk to the wife of a once-divorced man still paying alimony to a woman who divorced him 20 years ago.

Gov. Rick Scott's intent regarding the bill is unknown. He has reportedly limited his comments, so far, to saying how glad he is to still be married to his first and only wife.

A governor might well wish this topic hadn't come up, as it will no doubt mean he, too, will now have to hear lots of emotional divorce horror stories.

My guess is he will sign the bill, or not, based on what he thinks will win him the most votes. Or lose the fewest.

Some of the changes in this bill seem reasonable, and overdue. But no law and no judge could possibly stop many of the divorce stories from being sad and grim and terrible.

Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com or (941) 361-4964.

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